Software Quality Assurance Quotes

“Quality must be enforced, otherwise it won't happen. We programmers must be required to write tests, otherwise we won't do it.”
― Yegor Bugayenko, Code Ahead

“Some people mistakenly refer to software defects as bugs. When called bugs, they seem like pesky things that should be swatted or even ignored. This trivializes a critical problem and fosters a wrong attitude. Thus, when an engineer says there are only a few bugs left in a program, the reaction is one of relief. *Supposed, however, that we called them time bombs instead of bugs.* Would you feel the same sense of relief if a programmer told you that he had thoroughly tested a program and there were only a few time bombs left in it? Just using a different term changes your attitude entirely.”
― Watts S. Humphrey, Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself

“The job of a tester is to prove that the software is bug free, while it has to be the other way around: The job of a tester is to prove that the software is broken. The better testers are doing their jobs, the more bugs they manage to find and report.”
― Yegor Bugayenko, Code Ahead

“Tests are sometimes mistaken with quality assurance. These two notions are not identical: 1) quality assurance ensures that the organization's processes are implemented and applied correctly; 2) testing identifies defects and failures, and provides information on the software and the risks associated with their release to the market”
― Bernard Homes, Fundamentals of Software Testing

“Quality Never dies.”
― Abdullah Khan

“People who aren't steeped in software often have an unrealistically non-horrified view of software quality.”
― Matt Blaze

“Anything written by people has bugs. Not testing something is equivalent to asserting that it's bug-free. Programmers can't think of everything especially of all the possible interactions between features and between different pieces of software. We try to break software because that's the only practical way we know of to be confident about the product's fitness for use.”
― Boris Beizer, Black-Box Testing: Techniques for Functional Testing of Software and Systems

“Quality is the complex concept. Because it means different things to different people, it is highly context-dependent. Just as there is no one automobile to satisfy everyone's needs, so too there is no universal definition of quality. Thus, there can be no single simple measure of social equality acceptable to everyone. To assess or improve software quality in your organization, you must define the aspects of quality in which you are interested, then decide how you are going to measure them. by defining quality in a measurable way, you make it easier for other people to understand your viewpoint and relate your notions to their own. Ultimately, your notion of quality must be related to your business goals. Only you can determine if good software is good business.”
― Barbara Kitchenham

“Testing starts at project conception, or before. If you don't know this, you don't understand testing at all.”
― Gerald Weinberg